


Forces of Gravity

by blueiaf



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Android Bill, Android Soos, Cyborg Wendy, GalaxyFalls, M/M, Space AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3976705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueiaf/pseuds/blueiaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternatively titled: The Brave Little Pine Tree Goes to Space</p><p>Making a deal with an extra-dimensional being for a grandfather he’s never even met might not have been one of Dipper’s brightest moments. Not when that same being seems to have made it his mission in life to annoy the hell out of Dipper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom has a serious dearth of Space AU (Dipper has a freaking asterism on his forehead how has no one sent him to space yet?) so I am here to correct this problem.

“Coordinates are locked and systems check out green,” Dipper called, hands flying over the ship’s navigation screens in front of him. He turned to look at the middle of the bridge where Grunkle Stan sat at the captain’s station. “We’re ready to go.”

His Grunkle rubbed his hands together, teeth flashing in a smirk. “Alright, kids. Let’s see if this thing works.”

Grinning, Dipper looked over at his sister at the ops station next to him. She gave him a thumbs up, her own bright smile lighting up the ship as she bounced in her seat. Behind him, he could hear Bill start cackling while Soos whooped.

Dipper placed his thumb over the button for the portal and took a deep breath. “Activating now.” 

He pushed down. Bright blue-white light flared in front of their ship and Dipper threw up a hand to shield his eyes as he squinted at it. It resolved into a swirling ring of color, a splash of stars beckoning them from within.

“Woah,” he breathed out, wide eyed. Another galaxy twinkled back at him, enticingly close. He, Dipper Pines, was going to be the first person to step foot outside of the Milky Way. Awe rushed through him and he shivered, taking an unsteady breath in.

“Hurry it up! That won’t stay open forever you know,” Bill yelled, shattering the moment.

“Cool it, little man,” Wendy fired back from the pilot’s seat and the ship began to slide forward. The whole bridge held their breath as the tip of the ship passed through the portal. Rainbow coruscation flickered around them, overwhelming their lights for a moment.

Then they were through. Dipper leapt to his feet as cheers broke out around him, punching the air enthusiastically.

“We did it!” He hugged a laughing Mabel and spun her around as she pounded his back, screaming with joy. Half deaf, he set her down and started laughing as he ran over to high five Wendy. Turning to go find the next crew member, he found Bill inches from him, golden eyes glowing and mouth stretched in a manic grin.

“Congratulations, Pine Tree. Aren’t you glad you bothered to give me a call?” Dipper didn’t even hesitate to throw his arms around the alien, hugging the warm metal chassis against him. He let go quickly, feeling slightly ridiculous, and rushed off to finish congratulating the rest of the crew.

When he ended up over at the sensor station, staring down at the readings, he finally felt some of the elation die down. He quickly scanned through the data again, but his hopes seemed to be in vain. They really would have to do this the hard way.

Brows furrowed, he turned to the others. “Guys, there’s no planetary systems in the area.”

“What?” Mabel ran over to him and flicked through the read out. She spun to face Bill, long hair flaring out behind her and tone concerned, “But this is where the portal took him, right?”

The blonde rolled his eyes. “Yeesh, Shooting Star, don’t look at me like that. This is exactly where the portal took him. But star systems move, you know. He’s somewhere within a couple of your human parsecs of here.”

“Are you serious?” Wendy said. Dipper jumped; he hadn’t heard her walk up behind them. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Bill’s near constant grin widened. “I told Pine Tree. Didn’t I, Pine Tree?”

“And I told you guys this! Why did you think we got so many supplies?” Dipper said, gesticulating with his arms.

“I thought he’d just be somewhere nearby-ish and you were being your usual paranoid self bro-bro,” Mabel said and Wendy agreed.

“I knew he’d be not so close,” Soos threw in, hand raised in the air.

“Ah, interpersonal conflict. This is gonna be a great trip.” His Grunkle sat back in his chair with a smirk.

“You’re not helping,” Dipper exclaimed as Bill started laughing again. He rounded on the alien with a glare. “And neither are you! Go start up the deep scanner or something.”

“I don’t know how to operate it. Want me to try anyways?” Bill asked cheerfully.

Dipper forced down a scream of frustration as he yanked at his hair. He really didn’t know what he’d expected there. Of course Bill didn’t know how to work the scanner, he’d only helped them build and mount a portal generating device to their ship that could take them anywhere in the universe. What was operating some relatively simple equipment compared to that?

“Fine. I’ll do it,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t sweat it, little dude, I’ve got this.” Soos slipped past him and started tapping at the sensor console. “Just gimme a second, I’ll get it on the big screen and everything.”

In a few moments, the main holo screen flickered to life in front of the bridge viewport. Their sensors started slowly assembling a map of the surrounding area as they watched.

“Hey,” the helper bot called, “This things says it’s gonna take, like, a couple hours to get a good read of the area. Wanna go watch some feeds or something, dudes?”

Wendy shook her head, “I think I need to go call my family. We set up a way to do that, right?”

“McGucket was working on it, but I need to make some calls too.” Mabel said and the two girls made their way off the bridge. The door slid shut with a gentle hiss behind them.

“I’m good with feeds,” Grunkle Stan said, finally getting out of his captain’s chair. “Dipper, stay here and make sure the ship’s alright.”

“But Grunkle Stan-” His Grunkle walked off the bridge. Soos gave him a sheepish smile and followed the older man. Dipper pinched the bridge of his nose before side-eyeing Bill, “I suppose you have better thing to go do as well?”

“Not a one,” he exclaimed proudly, hands on his hips.

“Of course not,” Dipper muttered sourly under his breath. Wandering over to the captain’s chair, he flopped down in it. He watched the map build itself on screen for a moment before movement in the corner of his vision caught his attention.

“Woah!” He leapt to his feet and hurried over to the internal operations station the alien had started poking at. “What are you doing?”

Bill’s eyes flared extra bright for a second. “I’m gonna figure out how the ship works!”

Dipper seized one of his arms and started trying to tug the alien away from the control panel. “You can’t do that while we’re flying it! What if you start over cycling the engines or order a full lockdown or, or start firing plasmas at something?”

“Sounds like a blast, kid!” Bill effortlessly broke out of his grasp to poke at the screen some more. Dipper tugged at his own hair with a hand as several windows popped up under the alien’s fingers. “Think we could find something to fire plasmas at? Boring old space won’t explode when you hit it with super-heated ionized particles.”

“Look, how about we find something to do that doesn’t involve breaking the ship or anything else?” Dipper suggested desperately.

Bill blew a raspberry at him. Taken aback, Dipper blinked a couple times as the alien stepped away from the screens and old fashioned switches.

“Alright, Mr. McBoring Pants, what else we got to do here?” A single raised eyebrow challenged him to come up with something good.

Dipper fumbled for an answer for a moment. Bill tapped his foot. He was saved by a beep from the station Bill had abandoned. Turning away from the alien, he quickly pulled up the notification flashing on screen. “Look what you did! Now I’ve gotta… Disable the air conditioning in the kitchen?”

Laughter rang out behind him as his ears flushed red. It only took a moment to correct the temperature fluctuation, but by the time he turned around Bill had sprawled sideways on the captain’s chair and was toying with one of their spare headsets, the glasses and comm combo blinking on and off under his attention. Sighing, Dipper resigned himself to a long hour and sat down at the station he was already at to check the ship’s condition. No warnings had popped up earlier, but it was worth checking if anything was near the tipping point while they were stalled.

He was in the middle of the engine reports when his headset lit up, flashing a message across his eye screen. Grunkle Stan’s picture floated next to the call notification and he tapped a finger against the comm box to accept it.

“Hey, Grunkle-”

“Hi, Pine Tree! Look I can talk to you through this thing!” Bill screamed from behind him, echoing jarringly through the headset. Dipper cut the call off with a wince and whirled around.

“What the hell, Bill?” Raucous laughter was his only response as the alien flopped out of the chair with a heavy clang and something went clattering off across the floor, the station’s half-moon desk blocking his view. “Go give that back to Grunkle Stan!”

The alien’s head popped up and fixed him with unblinking eyes. “What’ll you give me if I do?”

“No. No, we are not doing this again. Go give those back and I won’t lock you out of the bridge.”

Bill whined dramatically, but got to his feet and collected the headset from the floor on his way out. Feeling an oncoming headache recede some, Dipper turned back to the reports and immersed himself. Finally some peace and quiet.

His headset lit up with a call from Mabel.

Groaning out loud, he slumped into his seat and tapped the accept button.

“Hey, broski! McGucket’s got our line back to Gravity Falls running so if you wanna live stream anything or call someone you can do that now!”

“That’s great, Mabel. Did you get that call taken care of yet?”

“Nah, I wanted to tell you first. My guys already know I’m gonna be pretty out of contact for a while. I just needed to let them know it might be a bit longer than I first thought, but it’s not like they need me breathing down their necks to keep things running.” Her voice took on a breezy ring, “I’ll just send them a few designs now and then and they can holo-conference me if anything urgent comes up.”

“I really am sorry, I didn’t realize you didn’t know how long this was probably gonna be.”

“Dip-dop, it’s fine. I barely go into the office anyways. Going on a cool space adventure is a way better way to spend my time.” He could hear the broad grin she was sporting.

Dipper smiled and sat back to watch the stars outside the viewport, “We’ll have the best adventure. I’ll make sure of it.”

-

“This is what the ship’s found so far.” Dipper gestured at the 3D star map pulled up on the holojector in front of him before tapping a few areas. They lit up while the rest of the stars faded. “These are the systems that it thinks have exoplanets worth checking out. I pulled a route together to efficiently search through them.” He traced a path between the stars, leaving a line in his finger’s wake.

“Won’t we find more planets as we move around? Why pull a route together now?” Wendy asked, her feet on top of the mess hall table.

“We’ll edit it as we go, of course.” Dipper flicked his fingers and expanded the map over the table so everyone could get a better look. “But I think we should start by looking at everything in this first section of space before moving on. It’ll give us a chance to find how the stars are moving so we can accurately predict where the planet we’re looking for has gone.”

“I’m fine with this plan,” Grunkle Stan said from the other end of the table. The rest of the crew threw in their agreement, voices tripping over each other as they all spoke at once.

Wendy shrugged and got to her feet. “I’ll go put the course in then.” She reached her cybernetic arm out and grabbed the holomap, tucking it into her headset as she made her way out of the mess. His twin raced after her cheering with Soos and Bill in cacophonous pursuit. Laughing, Dipper started towards the door when a hand came down on his shoulder.

“Hey, kid, I wanna talk to you for a second. Go scram for a bit, McGucket.” His Grunkle side-eyed the other old man who shot to his feet and ran out of the room screeching. “Yeesh, what’s up with him?”

“Grunkle Stan?”

“Look, you’ve done good here, this is way further than I’d have gotten if I’d tried for another thirty years, but I get a bad feeling from that alien jackass. There’s something off about him.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Dipper grumbled, the various times Bill had trampled all over his personal boundaries flashing through his mind. Mabel’s words were quick to follow them, her stern frown compelling him to open his mouth again. “But he’s from another dimension, it’s not that strange that he doesn’t seem quite right to us. He probably gets the same weirdness vibe from us.”

“Yeah, sure. Just keep an eye on him.” His Grunkle clapped him heavily on the shoulder and left the mess. Rubbing his shoulder, a message popped up on his headset’s screen informing him that their course had changed. He gestured the notification away with a thudding heart and rushed towards the bridge as a grin spread across his face.

Laughter greeted him as he stepped into the room; Soos was swinging Mabel around in the air while Bill danced around them and Wendy pumped her metallic fist in the air. McGucket was doing his own strange jig on top of the captain’s chair, ignoring their Grunkle’s attempts to get him down. With a fond smile, Dipper took a step forward and slammed his foot into something, tripping over it in fit of flailing limbs. A painful groan left him as he disentangled his legs, sitting up and glaring at the small cleaning bot. Gompers righted itself with an annoyed chirp and whizzed off.

“You alright there, man?” Wendy pulled him to his feet one handed, her smile as brilliant as ever. He found himself smiling back helplessly as he assured her he was fine, praying she didn’t notice his sweating palm under her fingers. Then his sister was calling him over and he was spinning in circles with her like a pair of children. Someone put some music on the speakers and soon they were all dancing like idiots in a bridge far too small for a dance party.

Bill slid smoothly into his dance with Mabel up and swept Dipper into a classic twirl and dip with a laugh. “It’s funny, watching you all celebrate something so utterly pointless.” He let Dipper up, handsome face still far too close to his, as they kept dancing, “So you pointed your spaceship in a direction and it’s moving, with the way you’re reacting you’d think you finally found a meaning in your existence!”

Dipper backed away, cheeks burning slightly and sweat prickling on the back of his neck, to continue with more space between them, “Don’t spoil the mood, Bill.”

“I guess you humans have to focus on something other than the futility of your life if you don’t want to go crazy! You’re really missing out though.”

The music cut out abruptly. “Alright, back to work you ingrates. I’m not flying this thing by myself.” Loud booing met their Grunkle’s words as they settled back into their stations.

Taking the sensor relays this time, Dipper started going through the data their ship had gathered. He’d focused mainly on exoplanets the last time, especially the ones in the habitable zone, but this was an opportunity like no other. After this trip he could return home with discoveries about M33 that would earn him a name in the history books. The Triangulum Galaxy was his oyster of discovery and he was going to eat every last bit of it. He wrinkled his nose, that metaphor could use some work.

Immersing himself in the read outs, he was soon cataloging the various stars and interstellar phenomena. They weren’t as close as he would like to be to look at the still mysterious source of the ultraluminous X-rays that were especially strong in this galaxy, but he would be able to collect vital data on them nonetheless. Even if he couldn’t find the source of the ULX, he’d have data from thousands of years earlier than they had back in the Milky Way. This would be a unique snapshot of the present of this galaxy.

A hand came down on his shoulder and shook him out of his data trance. He jolted and swung his head around to see his frowning twin, “Dipper, did you hear what I said?”  
He shook his head sheepishly and she continued, “It’s dinner time. You need to come eat with us.”

The two of them made their way into the mess, Mabel regaling him with tales of what had happened in the virtual company meeting she’d dropped in on earlier. They both laughed at the misfortunate employees, who’d been shocked to see the company head in their meeting and had proceeded to bungle their presentations, as they entered their orders into the synthesizer.

“I didn’t fire any of them, of course, their designs were great even if they kept tripping over every third word,” she said as they sat down with the rest of the group.

“You’re too soft on them. Fire a couple of the more terrified ones and everyone’ll be working twice as hard.” Their Grunkle tipped some of his suspicious looking dinner into his mouth as he spoke. Dipper eyed it with trepidation as Mabel and Grunkle Stan started arguing business policies before tucking into his own dinner. His tasted fine, so whatever their Grunkle had done to his food must have been intentional.

By the time he finished eating, the conversation around the table had moved back to their trip.

“We always heard them say: maybe in your lifetime someone will visit another galaxy. And here we are! Take that skeptics,” Mabel yelled, pounding her fist on the table. Wendy fist bumped her while their Grunkle rolled his eyes. Dipper thought he could detect a faint grin on his face though.

“I’m just looking forward to selling the portal device when we get back.” Their Grunkle rubbed his hands together with a smirk. “Billionaire status, here I come.”

“Only if I’m in on that deal.” Wendy grinned as she punched their Grunkle’s arm with her cybernetic one. Dipper winced in sympathy as Grunkle Stan started loudly complaining about respecting your elders and cradling his arm.

The door to the mess burst open and Bill tumbled through in a blur of yellow and black. “Hey, you flesh bags done eating yet? I wanna go play with the VR!”

Mabel was on her feet and throwing her tray in the cleaner in seconds. “I’m in! Come on Dipper.” She grabbed his arm and started dragging him out of the room, talking over his protests, “Someone else can man the bridge for a while.”

Giving in to the inevitable, Dipper followed the two of them as they hopped in the lift up to the observation deck. As they stepped out of the hallway into the rec room his jaw dropped. He’d known the ceiling was a giant window in this room but he’d never been in it while they were in flight before. The stars rolled past them, a pattern of shifting constellations without name. In the distance he could see a shining red cloud. Was that NGC 604 or NGC 595? He quickly tapped his eye console on and confirmed it as 604, the largest star forming region in this galaxy.

The stars abruptly flickered off, shutters covering them and plunging the room into darkness. Jumping, he turned to glare at the alien by the control panel as the room lights buzzed on. A crocodile grin was his only response before Bill and his sister busied themselves setting up the VR environment. A castle room came to life around them before shifting into a desert then jungle. Looking down at his now camo uniform, Dipper felt a grin start to spread across his face.

“Plasma tag?”

“Plasma tag!” Mabel crowed, her virtual reality gun materializing in her hand, “First to ten kills wins!”

-

The first week passed in a blaze of data analysis, research, and games. Bill had developed a bad habit of popping up whenever Dipper started making real headway on all their measurements to drag him off to whatever the alien felt like making Dipper do that day. The most memorable occasion so far had been their trip down to the engines when they’d been chased out by McGucket after Bill nearly set something on fire. He much preferred when Wendy or Soos joined him on the bridge. They would usually ask if he wanted to do something or leave him in peace while they took care of their own duties. Mabel would drag him off too, but she made an effort to catch him between bridge shifts. Usually by waiting outside the computer hub and intercepting his trek between the two points to force him to shower or eat lunch before they found something fun to do.

Dipper yawned as he glanced over another line of spectral data. He’d catalogued several star systems with unusual gas clouds around them over the last couple hours. It looked like it might be leftover from the formation of the systems, but he couldn’t figure out how it had stuck around for so long. Perhaps a star had gone supernova in the area recently. The composition of the clouds would let him know.

His eyes slipped shut for a moment as the colored bars resolved in the air. He had the central holojector running the image data they’d gathered while he worked on one of the single screens. At the moment, the bigger screen was pulling up the spectroscopy readings he’d taken of those gas clouds. Pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his eyes, he forced them back open and made note that the clouds seemed to be a mix of heavy to light elements. Most likely a supernova then. As he gestured his notes screen up to start writing this down, the door to the hub burst open, spilling white light over the darkened room and blinding Dipper.

“Pine Tree, Shooting Star says you have to go to bed now! Something about needing more than four hours of sleep every day to function like a human being,” A pair of metallic hands was dragging him out into the hallway before he regained his ability to see. “Personally, I don’t see why you have to function like a human being, humans function terribly. Try being pure energy sometime, kid, it’s loads better!”

Bill continued to chatter at him as they both got in the lift and descended to the bottom deck. They made their way around to the sleeping quarters and stepped into Dipper’s room. Stumbling up to his closet and fishing his pajamas out, Dipper had started getting undressed when he froze, horrified. Bill was still talking. Bill was in his room.

Face flaming brilliantly, he spun around to gape at the alien grinning and poking at his collection of cores. “Why are you in my room?”

“I love being in your room! It’s great!” Bill tossed the core containing his thesis project from hand to hand. 

“You’ve never been in here before, what are you-” He tried to snatch the core back from Bill, but he held it out of his reach. Unwilling to make a fool of himself trying to get it, he stopped and took a deep breath. Folding his arms he glared down the alien. “Okay, you’ve had your chance to look around. Now get out.”

Bill dropped the core back into the storage bank and flopped down on his bed laughing and starting to bounce up and down on it. “I wanna stay here, mine has that dumb charging station taking up like half the space. I don’t even need it! I’m self powering!”

Dipper snatched up the core and put it back in the right slot while praying for patience. It didn’t seem to help. “If you aren’t going to leave I’m going back up to the hub.” Whining met his statement as the alien tried to persuade him to stay. Ignoring him, Dipper shoved his pajamas back into the closet, a flicker of regret burning through his chest as he considered the bed he wouldn’t be sleeping in for another few hours. He turned to go and found Bill sitting in front of the door, blocking the exit.

He stared blankly at the alien. Bill grinned back.

He went over to his drawers and fished out a magnodriver he’d borrowed from Soos. Bill stopped grinning.

“What are you going to do with that, Pine Tree?” He sounded suspicious. Good.

“If you aren’t going to let me out then I’m making you my next experiment. Let’s see if I can find out how your self-powering works.” He took a step towards the alien and Bill was darting out the door in seconds. With a triumphant shout, he slammed his hand down on the control panel by the door, activating the lock. Finally alone, he threw his shipboard suit into the laundry corner as he pulled his ratty pajama bottoms on.

The comm to his room crackled to life. “That won’t always work; you’ll let me in there eventually.”

“Ship order: silence all door comms,” Dipper said blearily as he climbed into bed, cutting Bill off in the middle of his next sentence. He called another order to activate sleep mode and the lights dimmed out until his room was enveloped in comforting black.

It felt like his head had barely hit the pillows when the ship’s comm jolted him out of sleep. “First planet on scope, dudes. We’re getting life signals.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so because I'm dumb and forgetful I did not add this at the start of the first chapter. Go [_here_](http://crispych0colate.tumblr.com/tagged/galaxyfalls) for gorgeous artwork by my awesome super cool friend. You will not regret it.
> 
> Oh, I made some edits to the first chapter. I don't think you need to reread it though, they were mostly cosmetic changes. Nothing changed plot wise

Dipper hoisted his pack more comfortably onto his back as the turbulence tapered off and fiddled with his scanlet, ensuring the compact scanner was strapped firmly to his wrist. Next to him, Mabel bounced up and down, beaming as they waited for the ship to land. He glanced through the small window to the other side of the airlock door where Bill was spread eagle over the landing ramp, ear pressed to the floor. He claimed he could hear how close they were to landing, but Dipper figured he just wanted to be first off the ship.

Behind them the door to the ship’s lower deck slid open with a hiss and Soos stepped into the dimly lit airlock sporting his Mystery Shack inspired atmos suit, the question mark emblazoned proudly on his chest. “We’re past the atmosphere dudes, gonna be landing any minute now.” He beamed at them as he scooped his own pack of supplies off the floor. Dipper grinned back, it was time to start their first expedition and he couldn’t wait. 

The g-forces pulling at them lightened up and their Grunkle’s voice came over the ship comm, “We’re putting her down now. You scamps better be ready to go or we’re taking you back up with us.”

In response, Soos hit the button to activate his helmet, which slid piecemeal over his head until it locked together in a smooth curve. “Let’s do this,” echoed over the comm line they’d set between their suits. 

Following his lead, Dipper activated his own helmet. As the assembly smoothed out around his head, his ears popped with the pressurization of the suit. The contained environment probably wasn’t necessary, their initial scans read the planet as safe for open atmosphere interaction, but safety protocols existed for a reason. Dipper had heard enough horror stories about lax expeditions in school and he had no intention of joining their ranks. Words played over the clear faceplate as it successfully linked with his headset, informing him of the open connection between the four suits going down to the planet. 

The ship jolted as it touched down and he automatically bent his knees to adjust, years of practice coming into play. Dipper licked his lips and checked his scanlet again. Still secure. Bill’s sudden whoop brought his head up as the airlock slid open and the landing ramp descended, throwing light over them and the android sliding on his knees down to the planet’s soil. The rest of them were following him out in seconds, Dipper tapping his scanlet on and looking around wide eyed. They’d landed in some sort of clearing in a forest, green and blue foliage rustling around them as they took their first steps on dark alien loam. 

“This is amazing!” Mabel’s voice called over their comms. She bounced over to a blue mushroom looking thing and bent down.

“Don’t touch it ‘till I know it’s safe!” Dipper yelped, rushing after her and putting his scanlet to work on analyzing the fungus. 

Bill’s laughter echoed around him and the alien popped up next to them with a bouquet of the mushrooms in his arms. Dipper shrieked as the android dumped them all over him. “They’re perfectly boring, Pine Tree. All they do is glow. If you want interesting, you’ve gotta go further into the woods!”

Hand to his chest, Dipper gasped for breath before snapping at the blonde, “Don’t do that! And put your helmet up.”

Bill clutched at the eye painted on his suit dramatically. “Pine Tree, you do care!”

Before Dipper could grace him with a scathing retort, Wendy joined their channel to let them know the ship was taking off again. “We’ll be back as soon as we finish the scan. Or you call, whichever comes first,” He could practically hear the shrug in her voice. 

They wished the shipside team luck and backed off a ways as their ship shot back up into orbit. As soon as it had disappeared over the tree line, Dipper was calling for them to set up their camp. The alien hadn’t led them astray yet, so he’d take Bill’s word on this location being boringly safe. With all of them working on it, getting their tents and generators set up wouldn’t take very long. Well, almost all of them. Bill couldn’t seem to stay on task to save his life. And the various finds he brought them from the meadow kept pulling them right off task with him. The number of organic species sporting bioluminescence was fascinating. Dipper couldn’t figure out what evolutionary advantage the glow offered all these moss and fungi, but he took scans and notes nonetheless between pitching their tents and unpacking his survey equipment. 

“Why are so many things blue here?” Mabel asked him, tossing yet another blue flecked rock up and down in a purple clad hand. 

Dipper shrugged and scanned her rock into the scanlet as well before looking over the results. “Well most of the rocks are saying they have blueschist in them, so maybe they just have a lot of blue rocks on this planet and the plants are picking that up somehow?” 

Bill burst out laughing. Dipper reddened and studiously ignored the alien clutching his sides and snickering about how idiotic humans were. He wasn’t a biologist or a geologist. No one could blame him for not knowing. Then Soos was calling them over to look at a worm like creature he’d found and several hours had passed before the camp was up and running. 

With a hum, Dipper finished powering up the last of their equipment, filling the tent with the gentle buzz of running electronics. After inputting the group’s headset IDs into the location beamer he stepped out of the tent and stretched his arms above his head. Looking around the darkening camp, he felt a sense of perturbation. He knew the planet had a nineteen hour day and they’d arrived near it’s noon, but to him it still felt like lunchtime. They had a few days to look around before the ship finished its analysis of the planet and could tell them if their grandfather was here or not, but he’d hoped to have enough time to start looking around the forest today. But blundering around possibly dangerous territory in the dark was not a risk he was willing to take. Until the sun came back up he’d have to find something else to fill the hours. 

A notification popped up on his helmet. The first air sample had checked out as safe and the next was being collected right now. He dismissed it and went to find the others. Lights shone from inside several of the tents, but when he peeked his head in he didn’t find anyone. 

Concerned, he pulled up a call with his sister. “Mabel? Where did you guys go?”

“Hey, Dips! We’re on the north side of the meadow. Bill said there was something we’d want to see.”

Dipper fought down a flurry of hurt and worry as he told Mabel he’d come find them. They hadn’t even told him they were leaving the camp, much less invited him along. It didn’t take long to find them in the lengthening orange light, he could hear them laughing long before he could see them. A small, irrational part of his mind insisted they were laughing at him, but he squashed it down and pasted a smile over his face as he joined them. 

Taking a seat in the tall grass, he settled in next to a fidgeting Bill as Soos continued a tale about the time a rastil had gone running through the Mystery Shack. The furred, long limbed lizard had knocked several of the displays over, before climbing up into the rafters and hissing at anyone who came near its concealed location. Grunkle Stan had turned it into an exhibit on the spot. The hissing rafters, he would say, a rare phenomenon not seen since the colony was founded. Unique to this planet, it could only be appeased when people dropped large amounts of money on the floor beneath it. He’d made a lot off that before the rastil decided it had been through enough and launched itself at his Grunkle’s face before making its daring escape back into the wild. 

They continued around the circle they sat in, telling tales as the light faded into night. Bill kept whining about being banned from the floor after he started talking about the effects of oxygen poisoning on organic beings. Between stories he would try to bribe them into letting him talk again. In the middle of another one of his attempts, Bill abruptly stopped talking and swung around to look behind him. 

Alarmed, Dipper turned as well and stared in panicked confusion for a moment when he only saw dark forest. Then a ripple of orange light ran down one of the tree trunks. He scrambled to his feet, hearing his sister and Soos do the same behind him, and took a step back, edging slightly in front of his sister. 

“Bill what’s happening?” He forced past his clenched throat, breath speeding up. 

“It’s starting,” was all the android had to offer. Dipper couldn’t take his eyes off the lights as they began to play across a couple of the other trees to see what kind of face he was making. Swiveling his head from side to side to take in the rippling lights, he jumped when there was a flash of light by his feet. The grass they hadn’t trampled flat began to pulsate with a turquoise light and he heard his sister let out an awed exclamation behind him. His stance slowly relaxed as the mushrooms that had been faintly glowing earlier seemed to brighten and dim in slow breaths. The world around them gradually transformed from a newly fallen night into a dancing spectrum of colored lights. Panic receded into wonder and Dipper found himself absentmindedly activating his headset to take a short video. 

After a few moments of just watching his curiosity flared up and he knelt down and ran a scan of the glowing grass. Oxyluciferin, the main component of bioluminescence--according to a helpful note from his headset--greeted him. He ran a finger down the blade of grass, chasing the rippling glow, before getting to his feet and heading towards the forest where Mabel and Soos had gone. 

“Pretty great, huh, Pine Tree?” Bill fell into step with him, “It’s actually a bunch of bacteria forcing their hosts to continue producing sugars for them to feed off of. No rest allowed, keep us fed nineteen hours and sixteen minutes a day. Gotta love those demanding little slave drivers.”

“But what about the mushrooms then?” Dipper asked, stepping around one. As far as he knew fungi didn’t use photosynthesis. 

“They aren’t mushrooms like you’re used to, kid. They’re repositories for the bacteria. Look, see the one over there?” Bill steered him towards a tree with the largest mushroom Dipper had seen so far. It was pulsing at a galloping rate, a constant drum of light that got brighter and brighter as they approached. 

Bill poked it. It burst open, sending flecks of blue light spiraling off in every direction. Dipper tripped backwards with a yelp as the bacteria splattered him and Bill with their own glow. 

Sputtering, Dipper wiped some of it off his faceplate as he got back to his feet, smearing blue across his field of vision. “Warn a guy first!” Bill laughed and wrapped an arm around his shoulder to guide him over to the other members of their party. 

As Mabel gushed about wanting to glow as well, Dipper squirmed out of Bill’s grip and went to stand with Soos. Peering into the woods, he watched the ripples play from tree to tree while the undergrowth flickered with its own light. 

“Wanna go check it out, dude? Bet you glow enough we could see any roots and stuff.” 

He nodded enthusiastically and they started into the trees. Ferns rustled in the breeze while lights waxed and waned across their fronds. Moss crept up trees, shimmering a deep gold against the glittering orange of the bark. 

Soos wrapped a glowing branch around his head with a laugh. “Check it out. I’m king of the forest now.”

Dipper chuckled and offered Soos a playful bow. The two of them continued further into the woods with high spirits, exchanging jokes and awed observations. 

As he stepped around a bush something connected with his foot with a metallic clink. He blinked and bent down to get a closer look, parting the undergrowth with a hand and plucking a small disc out of the loam with the other. Holding it up near his faceplate, he felt a frisson of excitement run through him. The rusted disc formed a fairly flat, near perfect circle, much like the coins used for money in their history books. 

“Soos! Soos look what I found!”

The android lumbered over to him. “What is it, dude?”

Dipper held up the disc for Soos’ inspection. Soos delicately took it from his grasp and turned it over in his larger hands. “I don’t know, but it might be evidence that there are aliens here.” Possibilities darted through his head. This would be humanity's first contact with another intelligent alien species, if you didn’t count Bill. Was this planet why Bill had given them that language update on their headsets? Was Stanley actually here on the first planet they visited?

“Aliens?” Soos looked around before leaning closer and whispering behind a hand, “What if they’re watching us right now?”

Dipper laughed nervously, thoughts derailing into darker territory. He was pretty sure they’d see if there was anyone out there with all the glowing plants. It wasn’t that dark. Movement in the corner of his vision made his head swing around. The undergrowth rustled innocently back at him. There wasn’t anyone watching them with hostile intentions; that’d be ridiculous. But when Soos suggested heading back, Dipper found himself agreeing. They were pretty far from the clearing at this point and he couldn’t help but worry about his sister, alone save for Bill. 

It took a couple minutes to get back to the meadow and break up the mushroom fight his twin was having with Bill. Both of them were coated with splashes of luminous bacteria. Soos left them with a mention of getting charged up as they ducked into the sonic cleaning station. In a few moments they were free of the blue glow and splitting up for bed. 

He wished his twin a good night and ducked into his tent. Staring at his sleeping bag, he bit his lip. He really wasn’t tired yet. The core he’d brought to store all the data he collected on the surface of the planet, he really needed to come up with a designation for it, caught his eye from where it lay on the floor. There was no guarantee the forest would be luminescing tomorrow night, it’d only be responsible to go take scans now. 

Poking his head back out of the tent, he glanced around to make sure the coast was clear before sneaking over to the equipment tent. Gathering up everything he thought he’d need to get a clear picture of what was happening in the forest along with a plasmol gun, just in case, he stepped back out of the tent and nearly had a heart attack on the spot. Inches in front of him was a pair of glowing, yellow eyes over a shark-like grin. 

Dipper pulled up a private line between them, “This isn’t-”

“I’m coming too!” Bill chirped.

Dipper blinked then huffed, Bill might have scared the crap out of him, but he would probably be a big help in figuring out the forest if his knowledge of the bacteria was any indication. And if having him along made Dipper feel safer out in the woods, well, that was just a bonus. “Just don’t tell Mabel, alright?”

If possible, that grin widened. “Deal.”

-

“Can we take the helmets off yet, bro? It keeps pulling at my hair.” His sister rubbed futilely at the back of her helmet, her custom atmos suit glittering subtly in the sunlight peeking between the trees. They were following what Dipper assumed was some sort of animal path deeper into the trees. In the light of day the forest looked completely different. The tree trunks, where you could see them through all the moss, were now a grey blue in color, radically different from the previous night’s orange glow. The foliage was back to just blues and greens with no trace of the rainbow spectacle of the night before.

“One ship cycle, Mabel. It’s just a couple more hours alright?” He fought back a yawn. He’d gone to bed with only an hour or two until the sun came up again. Add to that the handful of hours he’d gotten the night before and he was really starting to feel it. The coffee from the synthesizer didn’t cut it anymore, it just seemed to ramp up his paranoid feeling that eyes were following their progress. 

“Bill isn’t wearing his helmet and he’s just fine.” She hiked her thumb at the alien attempting to scale one of the trees behind them. Said alien had the branch he was standing on snap off underneath him, sending him tumbling to the ground. Dipper could hear laughter from all the way over here. 

“Bill’s also inhabiting an android at the moment. You know, a robot that doesn’t suffer from little drawbacks like anaphylactic shock from breathing in the wrong kind of pollen,” or from falling out of trees apparently. Though, when he glanced back, he noticed Bill hadn’t gotten back up yet and had to wrestle down a flash of concern. If Bill was in trouble he’d call them back. 

“If it makes you feel any better, dude, I’ll keep my helmet on as long as you guys do,” Soos said. “Also, I found this spare battery pack lying around this morning, hope you don’t mind that I’m using it.” 

“But Dipper,” his twin dragged his name out. “You said yourself all the scans have been clean.” 

“Nope. Not happening.”

“Dipper,” She whined in her most annoying twin sister voice. “Dipper.

“Dips.

“Dipping sauce.

“Dippidy-dip-dop-pip-lock-bip-smock.”

“Oh my gods, Mabel. Just shut up already! You can’t take your helmet off yet!” He screeched. 

She laughed obnoxiously and started making weird noises into the comm. Dipper cut the connection between their suits and blessed silence greeted him. All he could hear now was the distant calls of whatever wildlife lived in this forest and their own footsteps as they tramped along the barely there path. One set of footsteps was approaching him at a rapid pace.

Spinning around ready to fend of Mabel’s tickle attack, he blinked in surprise at the sight of Bill bouncing up behind him. 

“Hey, Pine Tree, Shooting Star wants me to tell you you’re an ass bucket.” His sister waved and he watched her mouth move from behind her faceplate. “Also, she’s giving it an hour and then the helmet’s coming off and if you wanna do something about it you’ll have to fight her.”

Dipper started to move his hand up to pinch his nose when he remembered the helmet blocking the way and aborted the movement halfway through. His hand hovered awkwardly for a fraction of a second before he darted it up to turn his comm link back on. “Mabel, this is a serious protocol. People have died exploring exoplanets.” 

“But we’re fine here, bro, all your scans said so. Do you really think anything is gonna change in the next few hours?” 

“You could always ask Bill, he probably knows.” Soos threw in. 

Expectantly, they turned to look at their resident extradimensional being of knowledge. Bill grinned. “If you take your helmets off your cells will slowly shrivel up from contact with the toxic elements in the planet’s atmosphere.”

Dipper’s eyes bugged out and, as he opened his mouth to start shrieking, the alien continued. “Course, they’re already doing that with the oxygen currently circulating through your suit, so hey, live a little. Take the helmet off.”

A wave of relief and anger swept through him as he realized Bill was messing with them again. Swallowing, Dipper looked over at his sister. She was biting her lip with a frown, but her finger still hovered near her helmet’s release.

“I’ll go first.” He said, heart pounding. If someone was going to get themselves killed breaking regulations it would not be Mabel. 

Pressing the release, his helmet folded down around him and he took his first breath of alien air. Oxygen rich gas filled his lungs, carrying the scent of sun drenched forest and flowers without names. His eyes slipped closed and he took another deep breath, savoring the unique scent. He didn’t seem to be dying. Cracking his eyes back open he told Mabel to wait while he did a quick scan of himself. In minutes he’d checked out and was giving his sister the go ahead. 

She shook her hair out in a wave of flowing chestnut and beamed. “Much better!” 

The four of them continued through the trees, stopping to investigate any interesting flora they stumbled across, sometimes literally. Dipper futilely tried to shake the clinging vines off his leg. They’d closed around his leg like a vice when he’d brushed up against them and now he couldn’t seem to get them off. He froze and watched with horrified eyes as they seemed to curl even tighter around his leg, moving under their own power.

“Bill? What the hell are these?” His voice warbled while his hands hovered anxiously over the vines, hesitant to pull at them in case they grabbed hold of his arms as well.

Bill’s glowing eyes turned towards him and he started laughing, doubling over to clutch his sides despite his inability to breath or get a cramp from laughter. “Shooting Star, look, Pine Tree got himself grabbed by carnivorous creepers. They probably can’t figure out if they should grow on him or eat him.”

Dipper screeched and began trying to stomp the vines off him. With each frenzied movement the vines tightened further and he could feel his circulation starting to cut off. On the edge of hyperventilating a thought crossed his mind and he froze again. The vines stopped moving as well. He swallowed and looked carefully up at Soos, ignoring the other two laughing at his predicament. “Can you get a big branch?”

Soos was quick to fetch a branch and followed Dipper’s directions to beat the stick lightly against the vines. Sure enough, they unwound from Dipper’s leg to latch onto the moving target. As Soos continued to coax them away, Dipper pulled his leg away and took several quick steps back, nearly tripping into a bush. He steadied himself with a deep breath before turning towards his sister. “This isn’t a joke Mabel! If I’d been alone I would have been trapped here.”

“Oh come on, bro, they’re just some vines. Stomp on them a couple times and you’re good to go,” she waved her hand breezily to dismiss the problem. Off to the side, Soos gingerly leaned the vine covered branch against the tree they’d been growing off of and moved back towards them.

Dipper stiffened up and felt his hands clench at his sides. “Except they were cutting off circulation in my leg and whenever I moved they got even tighter! Stomping on them wasn’t exactly working!”

“He’s got that right Shooting Star.” Bill cheerily stepped past Soos to twirl the creeper covered branch around with a huge smile. “These vines catch things twice Pine Tree’s size and strangle them until they can wrap around enough to start digesting them. If the thing isn’t dead yet they’ll eat them alive!”

Dipper felt a stab of guilt as the smile slipped off his sister’s face to be replaced by a look of horror. “Oh my gods, are you okay Dipper?” He was quick to reassure her and, once they’d gotten Bill to stop playing with the carnivorous plants, they were on their way back to the camp for lunch.

As Dipper pushed his way out of the forest, weary and looking forward to food, he caught sight of movement between the tents. His plasmol was in his hand in seconds and he pointed it towards the motion with one hand as his other flew out to hold Mabel back. He saw her pull her own blaster out from the corner of his eye and Soos step up to stand next to them. With a nod to them they carefully approached the tents. As they got closer a humanoid shape flowed up from the ground and Dipper swore his heart stopped. The aliens who’d dropped the coin. They’d found them.

Then it came into clear view and Dipper felt his mouth drop open in bewilderment. Five little men stood on top of each other, each wearing a pointed red hat with the youngest at the head of the stack.

“I’m Jeff, leader of the Gnomes of the Disgyr forest,” the brown haired gnome said and swiped his hat off to offer them a bow. “Would you like to join my city?”

Dipper pinched himself to make sure he was awake.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and critique welcome. ~~Pls help me improve this disaster~~
> 
> If you see any issues with the astronomy I put in here I definitely want to know. I'm trying to get that as close to reality as possible for a work of fiction


End file.
